The Music Industry Needs to Embrace the Single

What is it about progress that causes people to reject it? When we need to take a shit, do we still dig a hole, crap in it, then fill it up with dirt? No, we use toilets now. When we need to travel long distances, do we still walk or ride horses? No, we use cars and planes now. So, why is it that so many people in the music industry — including some bands — fear your ability to buy one track instead of a whole CD (via online stores like iTunes)?

Before the ubiquity of the Internet, the CD made good business sense. Would you have rather driven to a record store and bought a CD with a single song for $5 or with a dozen songs for $10? [I made up those dollar amounts for simplicity.] Even if there were only 3 songs on that album that you really liked, you would have bought the $10 CD.

Times have changed and the people who buy $1 songs on the Internet know it. Who wants to pay $10-20 for 3 good songs and a bunch of fluff? It can be pretty obvious when a band came up with just a few good songs but their contract with the record label made them fill up the rest of the CD with something, anything at all. It no longer has to be that way. Bands can now record and release one song at a time, tapping their creative juices as it comes instead of trying to squeeze a gallon of OJ from a single orange.

A major key to business success is correctly anticipating what customers will want in the future. It is not hard at all to see that people do want and will continue to want singles. The music industry needs to accept that.